Obsession (9 page)

While this was going on, John Manning took over leadership of Operation Park and had his meeting with my Investigative Support Unit colleagues. From his research, Manning thought they were dealing with a type that has come to be called the gentleman rapist, who would fit the description I provided earlier: troubled in relationships with women, fantasizing about women enjoying being overpowered by him sexually. Steve Mardigian confirmed that this was probably the type they were looking for, although he pointed out that in the unit, we always stressed that you were dealing with individuals who might have one or more traits of some other typology. Therefore, it was necessary to focus on the individual character of this particular UNSUB. Armed with this knowledge, and more information from the conference, Manning developed a profile of the rapist, marking the first time in New Zealand history that this approach was used to help identify a serial offender.

He zeroed in on the man’s likely past. The rapist covered his hands, taking precautions not to leave fingerprints behind. This, combined with the knowledge Manning had picked up that rapists often had less serious offenses in their past, made the investigator think their UNSUB had a previous record for burglary, possibly having been caught because he’d left prints at the scene. As we’ve shown over and over, criminals do learn from their mistakes.

The UNSUB probably also had gotten in trouble as a youth or had at least had problems in school because of behavior, so there might be a juvenile record on him. And just as in the United States, when a criminal takes his work across jurisdictions, look for a reason: maybe he moved or started a job around the same time he switched crime-scene locations.

From victim descriptions, police were pretty sure he was Maori or Pacific Islander and slight of build, which was further indicated by the small windows he’d been able to get through. He was at least five feet five or six. They estimated his age to be between twenty-five and thirty-five, since they had attributed a rape to him back in 1988.

The investigative team went through a lengthy, ex-haustive, and comprehensive search, taking the physical characteristics (size, race) and age under consideration as they went through criminal records of people who’d been convicted of burglary, theft, sex-related offenses other than rape, even vehicular crimes, looking for guys who met those criteria and lived in the areas of the rapes at the right times. Detectives fine-tuned parameters over and over, generating list after list of potential suspects, collecting blood from them all until they hit pay dirt.

In the spring of 1995 one of the computer searches came up with a name: Joseph Stephenson Thompson. Thompson fit the descriptions provided by the rapist’s victims. He was thirty-six years old, slim, Maori, had a record of burglary convictions dating all the way back to when he was fourteen, and had lived in several of the districts at the time the rapist had been active. In fact, there was even a record of an incident in 1984 when the police were called to a home after a woman awoke to see him next to her bed. At the time he was arrested he claimed to be a simple burglar, although in retrospect it could have been an early rape attempt.

Thompson was arrested July 15, 1995, and later pleaded guilty to 129 charges, a record in the Commonwealth. They included 29 counts of aggravated burglary, 11 counts of burglary, 6 of entering with intent, 6 of aggravated wounding, 1 count of aggravated assault, 5 of abduction, 10 of assault with intent to commit sexual violation, 46 counts of sexual violation by rape, and 15 more of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection. The plea spared the victims a trial, but it did not satisfy the curiosity of the public and the media, who wanted to understand how anyone could do this.

In a hearing before sentencing, Thompson’s defense attorney argued that he came from a background of childhood sexual abuse and neglect that, although not an excuse for his behavior, should be weighed as a mitigating factor. Thompson was said to be remorseful and offered police and researchers the opportunity to evaluate him to learn more about the psychological makeup of criminals like himself.

The prosecution brought out the horrific statistics: of Thompson’s admitted forty-seven victims, half were under the age of seventeen, and only the Lord knew how many of them were psychologically scarred for life. He terrorized the victims in their own homes, beating them as well as sexually assaulting them. He planned each attack, from unscrewing lightbulbs to carrying gloves, and in later attacks began cleaning up after himself—removing evidence of the DNA he learned from the media the police were evaluating.

Thompson was sentenced to the highest penalty available in New Zealand: thirty years in prison, with at least twenty-five served before consideration of release. Although his attorney appealed the severity of the sentencing (an action that earned him death threats from the public), the sentence stood.

For his efforts, John Manning received the Queen’s
Police Medal. I believe he deserves that and more for taking to heart in his investigation what our research has proved time and again: no one wakes up one day and decides to be a serial rapist. There are recognizable warning signs, earlier offenses that should be seen by authorities as signposts of future danger.

When I talk about getting inside the mind of a violent offender, I’m talking about a process I’ve characterized as a “journey into darkness.” If I allowed my personal feelings or belief system to get involved, my sense of right and wrong, my incredulity at what one so-called human being can do to another, I wouldn’t be able to see the crime from the criminal’s point of view and so wouldn’t be able to profile him based on his obsession, the way he sees the world. It is still difficult for me and my colleagues to do, even with our forced clinical detachment and even after decades of experience, research, and practice. I can imagine, then, how horrific it must be for the victims of violent crime, who must instinctively and instantaneously go through the same process I do to profile their attackers in an attempt to survive.

So many times I have heard women talk about what they would do to outsmart and/or escape a rapist or other sexual predator. But the truth is, until it happens to you, you can’t know for certain what the best course of action will be. Until you are confronted with a specific rapist in a specific situation, you don’t know what type of animal you’ll be dealing with; what is an appropriate response to one rapist could be deadly with another. The goal is survival, and I have tremendous respect for any rape victim who lives through the ordeal because, as hard to believe as it may seem to some, if you’re alive to tell about it, you’ve achieved a major victory. And the rape victim doesn’t have the luxury of assessing events from a distance, with the
benefit of years of research: a rape victim must assess the terrifying situation as it unfolds, analyzing instinctively what to do or say to get out alive. I’m always outraged, for example, when I hear an opposing attorney or some other ex post facto commentator telling a victim from the safe remove of time and distance what he or she should have done in the heat and immediacy of a moment of life-threatening terror. Perhaps it’s my own perversity that I’d like to see that individual faced with the same situation himself and see how he’d react.

In the first week of April 1984, a forty-one-year-old waitress was assaulted in her home in the Cleveland suburbs. It was early in the morning when a young, slightly built white male threatened her with a knife and forced her to perform oral sex as he fondled her breasts. He told her he wouldn’t hurt her if she did what he told her to and warned her not to look at him. When it was over, he took her money and left her in the bathroom. The woman hadn’t gotten a good look at him, but did note that he had one distinguishing physical characteristic: a bump or scar of some type on his penis.

It is a common reaction to the violation of being raped to consider not reporting the crime, to try to act as though it never happened and hope the horrible memories, shame, fear, and anger will fade. In addition to their own emotions, victims often balance reactions from friends, associates, coworkers, and family members in making their decision whether to report the incident. As with other violent crimes, the circle of individuals affected moves out to encompass a large group beyond the immediate victim. She may worry others won’t see her the same way again or that they will blame her, making her feel even more vulnerable and insecure. On top of that, most rapists make some
sort of threat of retaliation if the victim calls the police and, they assure their victims, they will find out.

This particular victim, however, had the courage to report the crime to police, which became even more important when another rape occurred one week later only two blocks away.

Just after 5:30
A.M
. on the morning of April 13, 1984, mail carrier Betty Ocilka was getting ready for work when she was surprised in her kitchen by a masked man—with a stocking cap over his face—who put her in a headlock while holding a knife to her throat. When she instinctively screamed, he choked her tightly, threatening to kill her if she made any more noise. He led her at knifepoint to the living room, where he began to assault her on the couch, threatening again that while he didn’t want to hurt her, he would if she fought him. A single mother (her late husband had been a Cleveland police officer who had committed suicide), she was afraid the stranger would hurt her three-year-old son if he awoke and came downstairs to investigate the strange noises during the assault.

She tried to discourage the man from raping her by telling him she was having her period, but he forced her to perform oral sex, making her swallow the ejaculate, then took all the money she had in the house—just $21 cash. As he had with the earlier victim, the rapist left her in the bathroom, warning her that he would know if she called the police and would come hack for her. As soon as he left, she went to look for her son and found he wasn’t in his crib. She panicked that the rapist had kidnapped him, but then she found the child in her bed. As she told James Neff, the outstanding investigative reporter whose book
Unfinished Murder
recounts the story of the Cleveland rapes, the little boy never climbed out of his crib and into her bed. So he must have heard something that frightened
him and come into her bedroom for comfort. This, Neff reports, devastated her even further. Courageously, despite the intruder’s warnings, she called the police right away.

As she waited for them to arrive, she made herself some coffee and drank two cups, rinsing out her mouth. Unfortunately, her instinctive effort to cleanse herself destroyed any evidence that could have been recovered.

Cleveland police detective Bob Matuszny of the Second District knew Betty Ocilka (she delivered mail in the area around headquarters), and he’d known her late husband, so he was greatly disturbed to hear of the violence committed against her. Beyond his personal sympathy for the victim, though, he was concerned because he’d investigated the rape of the waitress just one week before. He and partner Phil Parrish reviewed the police report on Ocilka’s case and then went over to talk to her. There were enough similarities to warrant investigation of a possible link, but there was one point in particular they wanted to clarify: the earlier victim reported that the rapist had some sort of bump or scar on his penis and there was no mention of this type of distinguishing physical feature in the Ocilka report.

Now, this may seem like a strange characteristic to have been left out of the initial report, but it highlights one of the problems inherent in the investigation of rape cases. Rape is unlike most other types of crime in that without specialized training or experience, you’re not going to be able to recognize the specific motivation of the offender and be able to identify the kind of person you’re looking for. What motivates a rapist is so individual compared to that of, say, a burglar, bank robber, or car thief. If a guy robs a convenience store at gunpoint, for example, and leaves without hurting anyone once he gets his money, it’s
pretty clear what he’s after. Although in general we know that rapists are looking to manipulate, dominate, and control others, it takes careful analysis of the rapist’s behavior during the assault to figure out what type of offender he is. Behavior reflects personality, and in the case of a rapist, analyzing what he does and says tells you a lot about who he is.

As a profiler, I want to know how he controls his victim, whether he physically beats her or is apologetic about raping her, whether he gains access by conning her or by a surprise attack in the middle of the night. How does he rape her and what, if anything, does he say before, during, and after the attack? And these questions are just a broad beginning to the information we need to put together for a viable profile, which we’ll get into in more detail in a later chapter.

If the officer interviewing the rape victim isn’t trained to ask—or comfortable with asking—about this in detail, many victims are too traumatized, embarrassed, and frightened to think of everything. They are likely still in shock over the assault. It is not at all uncommon for victims to remember details a few days later, when their brains and bodies start to function more normally and rationally again.

In addition to having a friendly relationship with this victim, Bob Matuszny—along with his partner Phil Parrish—was among the more experienced detectives on the force. He and Parrish had grown up in the same tough neighborhood and attended the same high school. They knew what kind of information they needed to get a picture of the type of guy they were looking for.

They also asked if Betty Ocilka remembered “anything unusual about his genitals.” She answered that there was “a bump or something near the end of it.”

There aren’t usually too many serial rapists working the same area at the same time, and the chance that
two guys would be out there with noticeable bumps on their organs was even slimmer. It seemed certain one offender was responsible for both rapes.